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jueves, 21 de octubre de 2010

(Short English Translation : I am really pissed off. After Ryanair announced that it will axe down all international flights from Santiago, Galicia has suddenly lost almost all international flights ... so I decided to write a small rant and have a short walk down the memory lane)

In the mid-late 80's Iberia served Santiago airport while A Coruña and Vigo were Aviaco destinations; both cities were clearly underserved; A Coruña had a single Fokker 27 flight to Madrid, while Vigo had some scarse flights to Madrid and some other destinations.

A rather unique Galicia local edition : this is the only timetable I know of in this format. It is basically a reduced version of the Iberia system timetable, showing many exotic connections from the Galician airports to the whole world. Iberia also flew some "exotic" destinations such as Bombay/Mumbai back then. It reminds me of this German local edition.

Two further oddities : this is the only Iberia brochure I have ever seen that is translated into Galician language. Also, it includes some sketchy drawings from their fleet (the same drawings that were inside the Ronda inflight magazine at the time)

Have a look at the small pictures announcing the new routes to Tokio and Los Angeles. Tokio was initally served via Bombay. Later it was flown via Anchorage. Iberia does not fly Japan flights any more, and Los Angeles flights will be resumed next year after many years without service...

Honestly, I think the 2010 panorama is not much better. There are certainly more flights, and they are (almost always) cheaper. More airlines, however, do not mean more destinations. The destinations chart is, roughly, the same. A Coruña, Santiago and Vigo offer Iberia flights to Madrid only and codeshares with Vueling to Barcelona. Also, some Spanish domestic destinations are flown by their regional franchise Air Nostrum. On the international side, there is still nothing to write home about (hey! I sometimes think those flights in the 80's were a better offer!), the only difference is that they are now operated by LCC (Ryanair, Vueling) which offer a much worse product. Sure, prices are lower nowadays, but at which cost ?

Rheintalflug was a small Austrian airline headquartered at the even smaller Altenrhein /St Gallen airport (which no longer has scheduled destinations) with flights to Vienna. In the late 90's the airline codeshared with Lufthansa and flew some regional flights for them, but they later got merged with Austrian Airlines, which eventually led to the airline folding down...

A 1955 timetable from LAI, an Italian airline which was created by TWA. LAI had a somewhat extensive network which covered Italy, Europe, America and even reached Teheran. LAI merged with Alitalia in 1957 and thus Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane was born. This airline is now the old Alitalia, for there is a new CAI which still trades with the Alitalia name.

Un anuncio de la época en la prensa española, anunciando su ruta estrella entre Europa y los EEUU "The Diplomat"Their flasgship service "The Diplomat" between Europe and the USA as advertised in the Spanish papers at the time.

Several airlines have tried to build large airline empires serving whole continents, either by adcquiring other airlines or via partnership agreements; Alas de América was another such attempt in the Americas.

Despite being a reknowed Latin American carrier, Aeromexico has always had a relatively small destination network outside their home market and the USA: only a few cities in Europe (Madrid and sometimes other cities, depending on actual trends) and some South American destinations were served.

Back in the 90's, Aeromexico bought ailing carrier Aeroperú, which was in serious troubles but had a strong presence across South America, and tried to build a dual hub system in Mexico City and Lima. They also joined forces with long-term archrival Mexicana, one of the oldest airlines in the world., which also had a pretty interesting route network.

The only survivor of the Alas de América partnership is Aeroméxico; Aeroperú closed down in 1999 and Mexicana was forced to stop operations recently. Rumor has it, however, that it will resume its business soon.

This is actually an Aeromexico-style timetable and it is very poorly done; there are many bizarre connections shown, whilst most direct or non-stop flights are not listed at all.

Joint timetable issued in 2006 by the Russian carriers Pulkovo and Rossiya.

Pulkovo was a state-owned enterprise which owned and managed Pulkovo airport in Saint Petersburg, and also an airline which was had its main hub at the airport.

In 2006 Pulkovo merged with Rossiya, another Russian state airline which was in charge of operating VIP flights for government officiales and also had a limited schedule network. The last two pages in this brochure are the Rossiya timetable and are written entirely in Russian, even the IATA codes are written with the cyrillic alphabet (!)

This is a fascinating timetable, showing much of what is lost in European (and world) aviation and a hint of the airline scene in Europe in the 70's and the 80's : lots of small airlines flying "odd" routes such as Colmar-London by Air Alsace, connecting with carriers such as British Caledonian which provided an "alternative" service to British Airways, with a somewhat eccentric European network and an impressive array of intercontinental destinations.